Rosamund Morris

Odd but readable assemblage of short stories and novellas. Some of them (like the two Arthur Conan Doyle-penned Sherlock Holmes tales to which 66 pages of the book are devoted) don't qualify as horror at all, and most of the others are suspense stories that might be termed "horror" in a broad general sense. One of the notable exceptions is Ambrose Bierce's riveting "The Damned Thing," which is not just a horror story but arguably an early stab at science fiction as well. You also get Poe's classic vignette "The Tell-Tale Heart" and my favorite of the bunch, "Wine on the Desert" by Max Brand; I haven't encountered much of Brand's work, but this grim little tale of the revenge exacted on a cruelly selfish fugitive from the law is a first-rate piece of writing. (In fact, I would go so far as to say that it rivals Roald Dahl at his best.) Again, there's some very readable stuff here, but it's not really a collection of horror stories.… (mehr)

This collection contains eight stories of suspense, compiled for adolescents. Only two are especially notable -- The Tell-Tale Heart (Edgar Allen Poe) and The Monkey's Paw (WW Jacobs). Both of these stories are chilling, indispensible masterpieces, and both are widely available in other collections. Other included stories are somewhat dated in tone and content. Among them are Ambrose Bierce's "The Damned Thing", Elliott Merrick's "Without Words," Max Brand's "Wine on the Desert," A Conan Doyle's "The Speckled Band" (a truly ridiculous Sherlock Holmes story), and Ben Hecht's "Miracle of the Fifteen Murderers" -- a well-intentioned and well- written tale that would now be deemed offensively patronizing when it comes to matters of ethnicity. I'm afraid this collection has little to recommend it for contemporary young readers, though adults may find a few points of interest.… (mehr)